Impossibility Results

Status	Statement	Tags
	Fully quantum time-lock puzzles Open in the fully quantum case. Settled by the source paper when the generator is classical and the solver quantum, and when the generator is quantum and the solver classical under perfect completeness; a classical-query attack on the remaining cell would prove a simulation conjecture. 5 open	Quantum Query Complexity Quantum Random Oracle Model Time Lock Puzzlesqromimpossibility
	CAQB key agreement, imperfect completeness Open. Settled for perfect completeness by the source paper’s Theorem 3.1; the argument’s final step uses perfect completeness in a way that no known weakening survives, and the paper’s Simulation-Conjecture barrier does not cover this party structure. 5 open	Quantum Key Agreement Quantum Query Complexity Quantum Random Oracle Modelqromimpossibility
	Erasing real-or-random vs Boneh–Zhandry Open: whether erasing real-or-random security implies Boneh-Zhandry security. The reverse non-implication is proved only in the quantum random oracle model, and this direction is one of six non-implications the source paper conjectures and does not prove. 5 open	Quantum Cryptography Quantum Encryption Notionsseparation
	CRS-free everlasting commitment from malicious PUFs Open: whether everlasting UC commitment is achievable in the fully malicious token model with no trusted setup. The source achieves it with a common reference string (its Theorem 31) and explicitly leaves removing the CRS as a question, noting that the usual equivocation techniques do not transfer to the everlasting setting. 6 open	Commitment Schemes Physically Uncloneable Functionsotherassumption
	RBE needs Ω(log n) updates Refuted. Mahmoody and Qi, Online Mergers and Applications to Registration-Based Encryption and Accumulators (ITC 2023), construct an RBE scheme with O(log n / log log n) decryption updates and poly(kappa, log n) public parameters – strictly below the Omega(log n) this statement conjectured – via a fully online merger structure, matching the known lower bound exactly. The paper states this explicitly resolves the open question. 4 open	Registration Based Encryptionlower-boundresearch-solvedadaptation (ai)
	SK-DEPIR from One-Way Functions Stated by the source as its own conjecture and proved for two-round passive-server schemes. Its main theorem – that any crypto oracle can be stripped out of a SK-DEPIR and replaced by a one-way function – is stated conditionally on this, so the conjecture is the single remaining hypothesis between that compiler and a clean statement that no idealized generic primitive helps. 4 open	Black Box Separations One Way Functions Private Information Retrievalimpossibility
	No key agreement from GC-OWF Open for round complexity growing with the security parameter. Proved in full for two messages, which is public-key encryption; the constant-round extension is sketched in the paper’s appendix without a theorem, its security half deferred to the PKE proof. 5 open	Black Box Separations Garbled Circuits Key Agreementotherseparationadaptation (ai)
	One erasing challenge vs many embedding learns Open: whether a single erasing two-ciphertext challenge query, with classical learning queries, implies security against polynomially many embedding-model superposition learning queries. One of six non-implications the source paper conjectures, and on its own account the one that would close the most remaining cells. 5 open	Quantum Cryptography Quantum Encryption Notionsseparation
	Standard real-or-random vs embedding two-ciphertext Open: whether one standard-oracle real-or-random challenge query implies one embedding-model two-ciphertext challenge query, with classical learning queries on both sides. Both notions are singleton classes in the source’s classification, and this is one of six non-implications it conjectures. 5 open	Quantum Cryptography Quantum Encryption Notionsseparation
	OWFs are black-box useless for key agreement Open in the general case, which the paper names as the central open problem left by its work. Settled for three restricted protocol classes: constant-query perfect, constant-round constant-query imperfect, and Merkle-type. 5 open	Black Box Separations Key Agreement One Way Functionsotherimpossibility
	OWFs are black-box helpful for CRHFs Open in both directions. Two relaxations — distributional and class-reduction helpfulness — are proved conditional on the Simon-oracle amplification conjecture; neither yields the universal auxiliary primitive the full statement needs. 4 open	Black Box Separations Collision Resistant Hashing One Way Functionsotherseparation
	Simon-oracle amplification, strong version Open. The version without the collision finder is known only when the one-way function is itself a random oracle; with an arbitrary one-way function, with or without the collision finder, nothing is established. 5 open	Black Box Separations Collision Resistant Hashing One Way Functionsotherlower-bound
	No round-optimal pairing-free blind signature Open for a polynomial query budget. The impossibility is proved when User_2 and Verify together make O(log lambda) random-oracle queries, including when oracle outputs contain group elements; the superpolynomial message space hypothesis is retained. 5 open	Black Box Separations Blind Signatures Generic Group Model Signature Schemesggmimpossibilityadaptation (ai)
	Computationally unique VDFs in the ROM Resolved. Guan, Riazanov and Yuan, Breaking Verifiable Delay Functions in the Random Oracle Model (ePrint 2024/766, CRYPTO 2025), prove that no VDF in the parallel ROM can have completeness and computational uniqueness and be sigma-sequential for sigma a fixed polynomial in the security parameter and the Setup/Verify query counts – their Theorem 5.1, which in fact covers general (not just perfect) completeness error, strictly more than this conjecture asked for. The proof is human-authored and published; it has not yet been independently re-derived by this site or formalized in Lean. 3 open	Black Box Separations Random Oracle Model Verifiable Delay Functionsromimpossibilityresearch-solved
	Certifying no small non-expanding set Open: whether the non-existence of a small non-expanding set in a random unbalanced bipartite graph admits a nondeterministic certificate that is sound and complete on average, at the parameters the ABW cryptosystem uses. The survey poses it as one of two closing open questions, takes no position, and does not return to it.	Average Case Hardness Expander Graphsseparation
	RBE update bound, key-dependent schedules Resolved. Wei Qi, Tight Lower Bound on Witness Update Frequency in Additive Positive Accumulators (IACR Communications in Cryptology, 2026), generalizes the Mahmoody-Qi-Rahimi lower-bound framework to schedules that may depend on the sampled public keys themselves, via a new combinatorial structure (the falling-step sequence), and proves the same asymptotic bound holds. The paper states this explicitly resolves the open problem left in the source paper. 5 open	Registration Based Encryptionlower-boundresearch-solvedadaptation (ai)